Strangetown
by UnderxGravity
Summary: "Welcome to Strangetown. I'm just curious now, how'd you come across this little town? We love newcomers." Based on Sims 2 DS. Ever wonder why the characters never question what happens in Strangetown?
1. Lamentations of a Lonely Hotel Clerk

_**A/N:**_ I picked this game up again recently and thought, hey, wouldn't it be fun to write about the characters in Strangetown? So I am…. this chapter is in the hotel clerk's POV.

_~Lamentations of a Lonely Hotel Clerk~_

My name is Jeff. I've been the hotel clerk here in Strangetown for quite a few years.

I needed a place to crash until I could secure myself a job. Driving away from home, far from sober, I fell asleep behind the wheel one day. When I woke up, this strange old guy was hovering over me.

My head was killing me. I blinked until my eyes were focused. The old geezer introduced himself as Jebediah S. Jerky. He wore a brown cap that hid his eyes and some blue-jean overalls. Looked like a farmer to me, maybe in his 70s. After scrutinizing him a bit, I realized that he'd been talking.

"Sorry Mr. Jerky, but… what?"

He stopped mid-sentence to stare back at me. If you could call it staring- I couldn't see his eyes, but I still felt them trained onto me from beneath his cap. He opened his mouth and spoke slowly in a low, rough voice.

"You've been out here for several days now, mister...?"

"Jeff Cornwell."

"Mister Cornwell. I was all for leaving you out here, but then you'd attract the attention of some… unwelcome visitors. Plus, your car is in the middle of my cows' grazing field."

My mouth dropped open as I looked out of the windshield. I was, indeed, surrounded by two cows and a bull. I squinted past them and saw a vast desert, cactus and canyons galore. Mr. Jerky snapped his fingers in front of my face.

"Huh?"

He grunted and motioned to my car. The old man stepped to the side as I came out of my 2005 Volkswagen Beetle. My hood was crumpled and cracked open, and there was a bit of steam coming from the engine. Wait, how long had I been out?

My head came into my hands and I let out a groan.

"My poor car..."

A wrinkled hand settled upon my shoulder.

"Come on son, you'd better have a chat with the mayor. Then we'll see about fixin' up your car here."

I let out a defeated sigh and followed him up a steep hill, past an old jailhouse into what I assumed to be City Hall. Behind the counter stood a very bored looking man, who looked more like a wrestler than a clerk. He was patting his hands on the counter, barely acknowledging us as we walked past him. It looked like someone lived in here.

"Oh crud… the mayor is in one of his moods again," Jebediah muttered.

A dark-skinned man in a red suit and black pants was storming around, muttering phrases in gibberish. He grabbed a lamp off of a nightstand and smashed it on the ground. It instantly turned into a pile of dust, and I let out a yelp. Not something you see everyday.

Then the man turned and started to storm towards me.

"Look buddy, I don't want any-'' I was cut off when his fist connected with my face. Everything turned black.


	2. Wake and Find Yourself

_~Wake and Find Yourself~_

"Uh…" My eyelids fluttered open. I felt my face blindly for blood, but somehow there wasn't any. Funny. I could've sworn that jerk broke my nose.

Raising my head a little, I saw Jebediah and the mayor yelling at each other. The mayor raised a fist in the air, and the old man pleaded with him in the same gibberish that the angry man had been using. Suddenly, a look of peace crossed the mayor's face.

"Phew… I feel much better. Thanks Jebediah. Here, have 20 simoleons for your trouble."

The mayor turned towards me and held out a hand. I took it cautiously, expecting him to suddenly freak out again. He pulled me up without any effort.

"I'm the mayor here at Strangetown, Honest Jackson. Jeb here has told me that you have some car trouble, Mr. Cornwell?"

"Yes, sir. I fell asleep at the wheel… is there a phone that I could use around here?"

He thought about that for a moment.

"Well, the closest phone we have is in the hotel across the street. Speak to the manager there, tell him Mayor Jackson sent you."

Without another word, he strolled out of City Hall.

"He didn't even say he was sorry," I marveled. Jeb let out a grunt.

"Well, thanks Mr. Jerky." I nodded toward the old man, who had a strange look over his face all of the sudden. His jaw was slightly slack, a low almost inaudible moan escaping his throat. His sudden stupor left as quickly as it came, and he turned his back to me.

As I left through the wooden double-doors, I could've sworn that I heard him say softly to himself,

"Don't…"

_**A/N: **_Bit short? I'm sorry; the story is in the making, and I'm separating it into little chapters depending on what happens in each one.


	3. Hook, Line and Sinker

_**A/N:**_Sorry. This isn't my best work... But it has important plot hints in it, so… yep.

_~Hook, Line and Sinker~_

When I got to the hotel, the manager instantly insisted that I take a job there.

_Well, what the heck… _I needed the money too badly to refuse.

"What did you have in mind for me, sir?"

The large man fixed his beady little eyes on my face.

"Are you good with people?"

"Fairly, yes."

He nodded his head, bending down behind the counter. When he emerged, he held a blue button-down outfit and a matching blue hat. Not my style, but I didn't want to jeopardize my new job by bringing that up.

"You can run the front desk. Greet customers as they come in. Ask them if they'd like to stay, and for how long. Give them their keys-" he motioned to the key rack behind him, "after writing down their names in the registry pad."

"Most of our customers are used to staying here, so you'll see a lot of familiar faces before long."

And that was how I ended up settling down in Strangetown.

The hotel had no power. Heck, it only had one room. There were piles of dust everywhere. I thought to myself, whoever stays at this place has _got_ to be insane.

Problem was, I needed the money, so it would have to do. I just got kicked out of my girlfriend's apartment and didn't want to move back in with my parents. Nothing is more humiliating than living with your parents when you can't take care of yourself.

Surprisingly, a lot of people came to Strangetown, from all over. The same people came again and again for the same reasons. Sure they'd disappear for a day or two on business, but they'd always come right back here. After awhile, I stopped questioning them. Money is money, and I was saving up to… what exactly? Funny, I didn't remember anymore.


	4. Into the Desert

_~Into the Desert~_

"Jeff? Come here for a minute boy." The manager called me into the hotel suite he stayed in. He shut the door behind me.

I'd never been in his room before. All of the furniture was black. The fridge, couch, sink, toilet… you name it. It depressed me deeply. Where was the color?

My boss cleared his throat. He put a hand on my back and guided me to the couch. I sat down and waited for him to speak.

"I can't stay here much longer. I'm leaving Strangetown," he said simply. My heart pounded against my ribcage. Did this mean that I was out of a job, that the hotel was shutting down?

As if he read my thoughts, he said quickly, "But the hotel can't stop running. We can't lose our tourists and our locals. You will stay here, do you understand me?

You will stay here, and you will find someone to run this hotel. Someone else."

I nodded mutely. If I said no, I'd be out of a job. A bead of sweat made its way down his chubby face, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

When he made no further action implying speech, I stood up to leave.

My boss of four days left Strangetown the next morning. Didn't even say goodbye to me, just left a box with some legal papers coated in dust on my desk. It's as if I wasn't even there.

Jebediah came over to see him off. The men talked in their own little gibberish, Jeb talking to him in a quiet, reassuring voice. At last they embraced, and my old boss waddled out.

The old man sighed and turned to me.

"Hey kid. Tough luck, your boss leaving you with this dump."

"Uh huh."

"Ever need any help, just call on me. I live in the upper story of Mama Hogg's place."

"I'll have to take you up on that offer now. See, something from the guest room disappeared the other day-'' I stopped when Jeb's gaze shifted to the floor. He suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

"Come with me," he ordered. I followed him outside, down the hill and towards the desert. I'd never actually been in the desert. As soon as my feet left the familiar pavement of Strangetown, I felt a wave of overwhelming fatigue.

"Keep up now, keep up with me," Jeb wheezed. A hand came out and grabbed me by my shirt sleeve, dragging me behind him.

With a sudden burst of energy, I pulled away from him. There it was. The missing sink from the guest room was standing upright in the sand.

"No time to gawk boy, come on! Hurry," Jeb hissed. We both grabbed one end of the sink. Jeb led us out of the desert. When we reached the Strangetown border, his grip slipped on the sink and he fell to the ground, panting heavily.

"I'm too old for this," he puffed. His ancient body shook slightly as he helped himself back onto his feet. He shuffled over to me languidly, stared me in the eye.

"If something is ever missing from a room, it'll be in that desert. Never go out there alone, you hear me? If you can, get another townsperson to go there. Get me to go there if you have to."

"Okay Mr. Jerky. Thanks."

He twitched, and a phantom of a smile came over his haggard face.

"Please, call me Jeb."

_**A/N:**_ Mmhm, that's it. You'll learn about what makes Jeb so twitchy in later chapters. Please review and tell me what you think of it.


	5. Don't We All

_~Don't We All~_

_**A/N:**_ From here on, the POVs will be from various visitors to Strangetown. This is in Tristan Legend's POV.

She's dead. I can't believe that she's dead.

It was a simple movie scene. Nothing more, nothing less. She was absolutely beautiful in her strapless, velvety crimson dress. We met beforehand in my dressing room.

"Hey," I said smoothly. I could see her reflection in the mirror smiling back at me. She walked up behind me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I shivered as she pressed her warm lips onto my neck.

"Hey you. Ready for our big scene?"

"I guess so."

"What's the matter, Tristan?"

I breathed in deeply. "I have a bad feeling about this, Christina."

She giggled and spun me around to face her.

"Nothing new here," she purred. Her dark chocolate eyes looked up into mine. "Don't you worry so much. You're too young for grey hair."

I turned and grasped the mirror, trying to find the little grey traitors. She laughed and rested her head on my shoulder. "Relax."

I turned around to lower my lips onto hers in a short, sweet kiss. Too short for me. I had an awful, forbidding feeling that no one would be able to understand, and I wanted to drag her out to my bike and drive her away from here. Instead, we both came out onto the set, with our fingers intertwined. I gave her hand one final squeeze as the director nabbed her up, spreading her out on the floor. The idea was that she was being carried away by scorpions. All she had to do was lay flat on a metal slab with wheels, which would later be computerized as large, shiny black poisonous bugs marching her off to her doom.

As the scene began, I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. She began to scream, and I knew it wasn't real just because I knew her too well. It was just acting.

The camera-man was smiling. The director had his arms crossed in front of him and was nodding slightly, eyes widened with anticipation. It happened so quickly.

After letting off a series of small sparks, a set of lights snapped off from the ceiling. As I heard her real, blood-curdling scream, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was screaming and running towards her, but the lights hit her before I could save her. They immediately caught on fire, on impact. Everyone was yelling and screaming and crying… and me? I just fell to my knees. Throat-wrenching sobs came out of me. My love, my life, was gone in an instant. As they carried her body away on a medical stretcher, I half-way expected her to leap up to the applause of the stage crew, completely unharmed. I almost checked under the blanket, but fear held me back. They took her body away, and she was pronounced dead the next morning. Not that I stayed long enough to hear it. I knew, but I wasn't ready to hear it.

The pain of her death was overwhelming. When I got home, I was so distracted that I burnt the chicken that was supposed to be my dinner. I wasn't hungry anyway, but I picked the chicken up directly from the rack in the oven. The pain of the burning hot foul only made me grip the dead bird tighter, holding it to my chest like it was a precious baby.

I sat there for awhile, breathing heavily. My legs led me shakily to my motorcycle outside, which I mounted without taking my helmet. Tears streaming down my face, I rode off into the night, chucking the bird into some neighbor's yard. The bike had run out of gas after a couple of hours, so I continued my quest to nowhere on foot.

Somehow I ended up surrounded by sand in a vast desert, crying onto a cactus. After an hour or so, I felt a sudden strong wind and looked up. A few buildings loomed up in the distance. I followed their outline until I got to a strange little town with only a few buildings and some cows. When I spotted a little bridge over a river, I formed a game plan. What was there left to lose but my own life?

My tall, muscled form loomed over the water. Reflected in the raging currents, I saw my sandy blonde hair and sore, red eyes. My face was still powdered with a layer of acting make-up, which I hoped would wear off in the water whenever or if they ever found the body. I looked at my hand, curling my fingers into a shaking fist. Just as I was about to jump, someone grabbed me roughly from behind. I tried to kick them away, but they dragged me through an open doorway; I quickly lost my will to fight back.

All was quiet as I stared dejectedly at the carpet. My "savior" spoke in a quiet, calming voice.

"You don't want to do that, man," he said.

My head rose slowly to meet his nervous gaze. It was a bell boy. He looked to be in his twenties, around my age. He had light brown hair and a thin, youthful face. His body was lengthy, but he was shorter than me; I'm six feet tall.

"You don't know me," I hissed. Think I may have scared the boy, as deafening silence was my only response.

No one spoke for several minutes, until a rumbling noise picked up. I concentrated on the gentle hum of the AC.

"Where are you coming from?"

"No where."

More silence. Then,

"Where are you headed?" I paused to think about that. I was headed nowhere. No way could I go back to acting. I couldn't go back home to my apartment- Christina's perfume was a lingering scent, and I'd go mad if I had to breathe it in for another minute more. So what now?

I didn't even realize that he'd left the room until I heard the door click open. Some ancient dude walked ahead of him and gave me a glare. He gave me a once-over and said,

"For goodness sake boy, get up off of that floor." I shrugged and helped myself up. He sighed, hands in his pockets.

"Need a job then?" I stared blankly down at him. "We need a carpenter around here. You work well with your hands?"

I shrugged again.

The old man's face grew hard. "You listen here, _boy_," he started, "You're going to stop looking at me like a kicked pup. You're going to work for us here, and you'll work hard."

"I want to die," I croaked out. He let out a low, rumbling laugh, which seemed to astonish the younger man beside him. Me, I'd met crazy people before. He didn't faze me.

"Don't we all, kid. Don't we all."

_**A/N:**_ There you have it folks. In the game, Tristan explains that his girlfriend was carried off by giant scorpions. I figured by making it into a movie scene, it'd become more realistic. I want the characters' lives to seem real. And yes, he doesn't hold a burning chicken in his hands in the game, he holds a meteor. Close enough. Eh, it's fan fiction.

Tell me how you think Tristan turned out. Please take the time to review and tell me what you thought of it all.

Oh, one final note. Tristan finds out about his girlfriend later. He assumes that she's dead when her body is lit on fire, that's all.


End file.
